The Army's going green on Fort Bliss

Published 12:00 am, Sunday, January 9, 2011

FORT BLISS — The array of blue solar panels on a patch of dirt here near a renovated gym that they'll help power is modest, hardly hinting at the Army's grand ambitions.

Commanders at Fort Bliss, a post drenched in sunshine an average of 330 days a year, want to capture those rays and other sources of renewable energy to power the post entirely off the grid in just four years.

“For the solar specifically, we're looking at taking advantage of us being known as the Sun City, and being able to produce our own energy at some point,” said Col. Joseph Simonelli Jr., garrison commander at Fort Bliss.

The Army must wade through a sluggish Pentagon bureaucracy before leasing 30 acres or so for a “solar farm,” a photovoltaic array. It then will seek bidders who would lease the land and sell solar energy to the post at the right price — at or slightly more than the 91/2 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour Fort Bliss now pays on the local grid.

But Benny Joe “B.J.” Tomlinson Jr., renewable energy and sustainable energy manager for Fort Bliss, said work on the solar farm could be completed in a little more than a year after finalizing a lease agreement, which might take 18 to 36 months. That makes 2015 realistic.

The post today is looking at building a 25-megawatt solar array that would cost around $112 million. Plants that size can generate enough energy to power roughly 5,000 homes at any moment, but Fort Bliss will need far more electricity.

The post typically uses 42 to 60 megawatts, but a growth spurt under way could see usage rise to 100 megawatts — enough for a town of 20,000. That's why Tomlinson is thinking of having private companies build up to 10 solar farms.

But there's more. Fort Bliss wants to generate 90 to 140 megawatts with a waste-to-energy plant and concentrated solar thermal. The waste-to-energy plant would burn all the solid waste generated in El Paso and at the post, while concentrated solar creates steam that runs electric turbines.

The post already is testing the feasibility of a geothermal power plant that uses hot water from underground, with the potential to generate 40 megawatts.

Concerned about its carbon footprint, Fort Bliss also is monitoring its power use, installing solar panels on rooftops, using lights that go off when people aren't around, and skylights that naturally illuminate offices.

“You see there are no lights in my office,” said Simonelli, who cycles to work and drives an electric car around Fort Bliss — in part to serve as an example. “I have no lights on because during the day I utilize the natural light and the windows that we have in here to do that.”

There's another reason for going solar — security. Former CIA Director James Woolsey told the Military Reporters & Editors conference last fall that the electrical grid is vulnerable to terrorist attack, with parts of the country at risk of going dark for days or weeks.

Noting that Nellis AFB in Nevada already powers a quarter of its energy needs by solar, Monique Hanis of the Washington, D.C.-based Solar Energy Industries Association said she's seeing increased interest in renewable energy from the armed forces in part because of security issues.

“Even if you look at other things like just a hurricane or rolling brownouts just because of weather ... it's energy security both where there could be a man-made threat or also just it could be weather,” she said.

Fort Bliss' proposed solar farm owes its creation at least in part to the last base-closure round, which, ironically, has turned a historically small post into a fairly large one. This fall, Fort Bliss will have more than 30,000 troops on post, up from 13,278 in 2005.

Driven by fears that another closure round would rob Fort Bliss of troops and missions over concerns about water, the city launched a study that revealed there was actually an abundance of it.

There was one problem: The water under the mountainous desert land around El Paso was full of salt. So the city built a desalination plant that estimates say will produce drinking water for the city for the next 100 years.

Enter the solar farm. Simonelli said the city approached Fort Bliss to build an array that would power the desalination plant. The solar farm, like the desalination plant, will be on some of the post's 1.1 million acres. Under the deal with the city, any excess power from the solar farm will be diverted to Fort Bliss.

The post gets water from the desalination plant under a lease agreement with the city.

At Fort Bliss, the Army will be a guaranteed customer for energy generated by renewables. Simonelli said the Army will turn also to biomass, geothermal and wind because “all four ... are abundant here in the El Paso-New Mexico area.”

Commanders envision using sun during the day, wind in late afternoon and evening when gusts are most likely to kick up, and biomass and geothermal at night or on cloudy days. They believe they can reach “net zero,” when renewable sources and conservation provide all the post's energy needs, by the end of 2015.

“It's extremely ambitious,” Simonelli conceded. “However, if we take advantage of existing things such as public-private partnerships and ventures, if we take advantage of linking up with the city of El Paso, and El Paso Electric and El Paso water, we believe that between all of us we would make it a viable option for the future.”